The Confetti Top

Yes, there’s a little anarchist in me and I love power being challenged. Obviously system beholden reporters are not doing it, and so the task was left to a young 21 year old German chick with balls making Draghi look like a scared little boy. Loved it.

The #DAX since then:

Ah yes. A nice joyful interruption from the tedium that is the current market.

Some other highlights of interest:

China debt expansion is just plainly terrifying:

We’ve known for years about China front loading its growth by building ghost cities where nobody lives. All this debt has been accumulated and now growth is slowing. How all this ends, no idea, but as long as debt doesn’t matter business as usual.

Also business as usual: The revolving door of corruption in one form or another. What could be a more despicable display than a man personally enriching himself by collecting from the very people who directly benefited the most from the biggest wealth transfer in history he himself initiated?

I’m speaking of Ben Bernanke of course. Not only $250K speaking engagements and a book deal. No that’s not enough. Now for the crowning achievement: A job with Citadel a $25B hedge fund. Please. One hand washes the other.

Hard not to be a cynic in the current environment. But I’m sure Ben is laughing himself silly and Janet Yellen can’t wait to get the same gig. Seriously why implement policies that would deny you millions of dollars of personal wealth down the road?

As to US markets:

We saw a programmed ramp to cross the trend line with the help of horrid economic data. The action feels contrived, the signals are unconvincing and volume is just drying up again as soon as the market crosses the 2110 $SPX mark.

The end result: Meh

$XLF remains in a bear flag, of note especially since $JPM and $GS went flying higher:

At the end of the day the trend line was rejected and the question of course is: Was this it? And if not how high will they jam it?

We’ve had 9 days in a row of market open ramps out of thin air and it’s clear someone wants the market higher. Yesterday I noted very large call volume activity for May in the $SPY $220 strike.

What could be the target? $SPX 2,200 obviously and for good measure the upper quarterly Bollinger band may just be the crowning achievement for May if this becomes a sell in May type event: 2233.

I’m outlining this as a risk zone toward the upside. Mella and I initiated shorts yesterday and so far so good, but again, nothing has broken and nothing will until key MAs are broken:

I’ll keep watching the trannies here. If there’s a canary in the coal mine, this just may be it as they are acting weak, weak, and then some more weak: